New Year Mini-Cruise to Rouen

Over the new year break Mrs Grumpy and I went on a Mistral Holidays / Brittany Ferries mini-cruise to Rouen from Portsmouth.

Firstly, lets deal with the word 'cruise'. It's a big boat, with food (good food), and entertainment, there's a cabin, so, yes it's a cruise, but it's on a car ferry.

The Bretagne is a big, modern (or recently refurbished) car ferry which, I gather, does do the longer runs to Spain on occasions, so it's well equiped for this sort of jaunt. We were able to put our car on the boat for the duration of the trip, whcih in truth was no more expensive than parking it at the port. We were able to access the car while it was docked, although we had to wait for a crewman to accompany us to get to it.

The arrival, loading and departure times from Portsmouth were somewhat confusing and we arrived rather too early, and had a three hour wait to board. We bought a drink and used the facilities in the terminal building, which were OK - clean and adequate.

Once on board we easily found our cabin (we got the key card at check-in at the entrance to the car park) which was, lets say, bijou! We had a double cabin - that's bunk beds, with a stool, tiny table, and mirror. There was room for a case, and hanging for clothes. We had a shower, wash basin and loo en-suite. One needed to be supple to get on and off the top bunk, there didn't seem to be enough head room to get down easily! The shower was perfectly adequate, the water temperature went right the way up to 'superheated steam' level! There was a single (EU / Schuko) earthed socket which we used for our kettle. A hair dryer would have been useful to bring with us. The beds were comfortable, and extra pillows & blankets were available on request. Ventilation was through a rather noisy forced vent in the ceiling - perfectly adequate. Although our cabin was next to the stairwell we were not particulalry bothered by noise.
I beleive it was possible to upgrade to larger / outside cabins, but it was not clear how this worked, or what the prices were.

The selection of food was very good, and not over-priced (in our opinion). There was a self-service restaurant with good quality freshly prepared food - we eat there on two evening and although the menu was identical each evening found something to suite each time - spending about £12 a head each meal for two courses with a drink. The café-bar was always open with simple food (pizzas and panninis, tea, coffe etc) - we bought the breakfast tray (croisant, orange, tea/coffee) each day costing £3.50 each. We had booked for the New Years Evening 'gala meal' in the restaurant (Les Abres) which was a five course meal, and was truly excellent - equal to any that you'd get in a decent restaurant in France. If you hadn't booked for the gala meal, then the choice of food was severely restricted on that evening.

The entertainment was perhaps the biggest dissapointment. The main bar / dance area was too small to accomodate the numbers who wanted to be in there, and I would class the entertainers, what I saw of them, as bottom league working mens club - really rather poor! In the 'piano bar' there was a chap intermittently playing the piano - but strangely when the Welsh contingent started singing along, he stopped playing!
As an alternative, the reclining chairs on the boat were always available, and one evening we sat in one of these and watched a drama on BBC1. However there was no way of escaping the sound and vision from the screens when in these chairs. It would have been nice to be able to use some of these seats as a quiet retreat.
There were other seating areas, indoors and outdoors on the boat.

While the cruise lasted a total of four days (two days on the Seine or at sea and two days at harbour) we had a day and a half in Rouen. A coach trip to Paris (90 mins each way) was available, and people we talked to who went said it was good, with time for shopping and a meal, with a good sightseeing tour included. Rouen is a really nice historic city with plenty of bars and restaurants. There were no big supermarkets near the port if that's what you are looking for! A half-hourly shuttle bus was laid on between the boat and the town, this always seemed to be full to standing, but we didn't see anyone turned away. It is perfectly possible to walk into the town from the port, but it does look a bit of a distance (more than the stated 15 minutes!).

The Brittany Ferries staff were without exception friendly and accomodating; almost all were French, but spoke perfect English (and pretty good French too!). There were lots of staff around at all times. Mistral staff were also on board for assistance.

The crossing was smooth on the way out and 'lumpy' on the way back, I was surprised how much the Bretagne rolled! We set off and arrived back precisely on time from Portsmouth.

I was a little concerned before the trip that the boat might be full of short necked men with tattoos and their be-blinged chav wives drinking their way to France and back. As it happened there was a cross section of society - mostly over 40, with almost all 'making an effort' for the gala meal, with dicky-bows and long dresses being in evidence (and even a couple of cumberbunds!). There, strangely, seemed to be a lot of Welsh on board - but maybe New Years Eve in Wales is a bit dull!

This was a good way to spend new year, it was interesting, and enjoyable, at the right price. It might not suite everyone, but I'd do it again!